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Content marketing in the public sector: September 2015

1 October, 2015

When the history of content marketing is written, September 2015 will be part of it.

This past month has been packed with events, announcements and surprising (or not so surprising) appointments. In this edition of the recap of Content Marketing in the Public Sector we revisit Content Marketing World, the announcement of the world’s first degree majoring in content marketing from University of Canberra and the political spill that led to a new Prime Minister.

Events

The month began with the annual content marketing event in Cleveland, Ohio. Content Marketing World brought together 3500 of the best and brightest minds in the content marketing industry from 65 countries around the world.

contentgroup CEO, David Pembroke made the trek to Cleveland and his key takeaway was from a presentation from award winning journalist and former National Editor of The Washington Times Rajiv Chandrasekaran about authenticity. Rajiv said the only way to communicate effectively was through storytelling. He went on to say the only stories worth reading are those about real people.

During the conference, Australian based content marketing agency, King Content took home top prize winning Content Marketing Agency of the Year. King Content winning the award is a big step in the right direction for content marketers in Australia. Content marketing as a strategic business process has taken off in the UK and the US and it’s only a matter of time before it takes off in Australia.

Congratulations to all the agencies that participated in and took home an award from the Content Marketing Awards 2015, continuing to spread the word on the effectiveness of content marketing!

Announcement

The University of Canberra announced that they will introduce a world’s first Bachelor of Journalism degree majoring in Content Marketing for the 2016 academic year. The announcement was received with a loud applause as Joe Pulizzi, CEO of Content Marketing Institute announced the degree on day two of Content Marketing World.

David Pembroke will co-chair a newly convened committee of the Journalism course advisory group that will assist the University of Canberra’s journalism school to continue to improve and refine the content marketing major.

To the question of why content marketing should be part of a journalism degree, David said the skills of an effective content marketer were more closely related to journalism than to traditional marketing.

“Technology has changed the way the world communicates,” he said. “The priority now for anyone with a story to tell is to create useful, relevant, valuable and consistent content in order to engage audiences, not interrupt them. We believe these skills are more closely aligned to journalism than marketing.” The announcement of the degree also confirms that content marketing is an important skill that future communicators will need. It will be interesting to see how the University builds the course outline.

A new Australian Prime Minister

On 14 September 2015, then Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, announced he would challenge Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the leadership of the Liberal Party, and hence for the Prime Ministership of Australia.

The incumbent Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said that a meeting of Liberal members of parliament and senators would take place for the purpose of a spill motion. During the meeting a vote was held for the leadership and deputy leadership. Malcolm Turnbull defeated Tony Abbott, 54 votes to 44, becoming the new Prime Minister.

Following his successful challenge for the leadership, Turnbull named his new ministry, which included the appointment of new Communications Minister Mitch Fifield. Fifield will also act as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Digital Government.

As part of the changes, the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) is also being moved to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, in an important signal that the new Prime Minister is looking to strongly drive the transformation process.

Only time will tell how government communicators will benefit from the new restructuring. Turnbull has said, “The Australia of the future has to be a nation that is agile, that is innovative, and that is creative. We can’t be defensive, we can’t future-proof ourselves.

“We have to recognise that the disruption that we see driven by technology, the volatility in change is our friend if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage of it.”

With sentiments like those, content marketing falls in direct line with what we have mentioned previously: technology has democratised the factors of media production and distribution. Everyone can now be a media company. The challenge is how you make the most of that opportunity.

Blogs in September

Our blogs in September covered a wide range of topics. We released the second edition of the Canberra Creative Industries Directory, followed David Pembroke as he headed to Content Marketing World, explored visual content, shared some thoughts on social media and much more.

Each week a staff member puts pen to paper to write about an aspect of content communication that speaks to them, and hopefully, informs you. This is a space where our passion for writing, learning and sharing information comes to shine.